Reflections on travel as a solution

solving lack by changing locations

I am three weeks home now. I bought several orchids and crowded them on my kitchen table. I am wearing my jade and my kaftans (over long underwear) trying to extend the joy of my trip. I’m fantasizing about returning to the tropics, or a temperate climate next winter, for longer. At the same time, I am noticing questions that are emerging for me.

That it is possible for a middle class person to move to another country where the cost of living is much lower, and live as a wealthy person seems both strange and wonderful. But there is a terrible contrast in the migrants who, after harrowing journeys, try to find a new life in a richer country, only to find themselves locked out, their voices unheard. Perhaps their children are caged, their livelihoods gleaned from the lowest strata, and that, only if they succeed.

Animals, too, travel for a better life. With the seasons, or when their territory has been compromised by human activity; creatures fly or wander great distances spurred by the wisdom of their genetics, and perhaps, in learning patterns from their elders. Delicate humming birds and roving pumas, wolves, geese, elephants move to solve scarcity, climate and romantic woes.

We have the language of invasive species to indicate our resentment of plant life that finds a new home in our location. We treat the human migrants just as poorly; they are enemies to our prosperity, even as we employ them. At the same time, those of us who can and dare, travel to locals that comfort us, avoiding our winters in exchange for verdant worlds with cheap expense.

I’m not sure how to sort out these thoughts. Economies are complicated, and there are some ways in which tourism supports locals. But is it also plunder?

There is a way in which we humans, not unlike our creature cohabitants, seek to avoid the negative and have only the good. The good is defined as our preferences. What is good is what I want. It is said that children who learn to delay gratification are more likely to succeed as adults. It is also said that we have the right to pursue happiness. And yet, somehow, as a result of all of this desire and pursuit, we are hurting our world, perhaps irreparably. The imbalance becomes apparent in great volume. There are so many towering condo buildings along the coastline of Thailand in some places. There, where we have descended like locusts, our simple desire for warmth has ravaged nature. But as an individual, I want to be in one of those condos with its roof top pool and soaring views. What other unseen dark sides are there to this desire?

I have often found myself thinking that our notion that growth is progress is the fallacy. Functional medicine doctors advocate that we eat until only 80% full. When the individual has him or herself as the center of reality, he misses the untruth of his claim. We are not separate. While we need ego consciousness in order to function, it is also true that if we stop there, resting in self-interest, we annul the greater truth of our transcendent reality. We are, as a teacher of mine taught, a many-centered self. If we learn this lesson, we will have a better chance at creating balance and becoming the guardians of our planet rather than it’s rapists.

I haven’t forgotten art. I will be returning to it as soon as I can-as soon as I sort out some of my thoughts about my trip. Thank you for coming along with me.

Namaste